Keywords

Articles tagged "Uruguayan Literature"

With only 3.4 million people, Uruguay is the smallest Spanish-speaking country in South America, but it has always been well-populated with poets. The Uruguayan poet Leo Masliah makes this clear in his song “Biromes y Servilletas” (“Ballpoint Pens and Napkins”), which pokes fun at Montevideo, the capital where half the country’s population lives, as the place where “there are poets poets poets” that “claim neither glories nor laurels, laurels,...

I’ll talk about something else
never that
I’m not going to tell you
enough!
I’m going to draw this subtle
paradise of paper
that doesn’t mention lice or dreams
a look back at a brief childhood
I’m going to talk about hammocks
and rosaries
I assume you don’t pray
and you never slept in a hammock
yesterday
tomorrow
never
I won’t keep a tally
bruises that go away go inwards
to explode again in the faces of children
your children and ad eternum...

the nail fell, making the floor shriek
i aim to fix the hole by filling it with paper
wad it up a little and stuff it in
it can’t fail
i push it in deeper
it falls through, into a void
i try again but with bigger paper
it falls through
i write tiny poems and toss them into the new mailbox on my wall
i explain the lack of plaster to whomever might see it:
children who fall from bed
latent madness
the freedom of abandonment...

I
Linguistics in the time of Uruguayan invasion.
When nobody cared about linguistics,
before France, before Saussure,
when nobody could have imagined a human being might ever think about
linguistics.
II
They planted flags.
Loyally they defended their country to the limit
and far beyond it
was linguistics.
III
Linguistics isn’t a resource that’ll ever carry a nation to
glory.
In fact, the glory...

“I can’t seem to remember her,” the man said in anguish. “I can’t remember her face or her body or her voice—that voice that I once adored. I have this mental image that her voice was pleasing, but the sound isn’t there. Do you understand? How can you be in love with someone whom you can’t seem to remember? We’ve only been separated for six months.” (The psychologist jotted something down in his notepad that passed unnoticed by...

Graciela entered the bedroom, took off her light overcoat, looked at herself in the dressing table mirror, and frowned. Then she removed her blouse and skirt and threw herself on the bed. She bent one of her legs, stretched it as much as she could, and suddenly noticed a run in her stocking. She sat down, took off her stockings, and began to inspect them for another run. Afterward, she made a small pile of them and placed it on a chair. She looked at herself in the mirror again and...

Now I have to get the fourth glass down me before I can operate. I mean, the fourth glass, filled to the brim, full of the amber stuff. Yes, now I drink the amber, Scotch. Because of my liver, you know. Why should I try to kid you, we go back a long way, and just between you and me, you're my best friend, you rallied to the cause, you're a great colleague. I went for some liver function tests, and things aren't looking too bright. Anyway, since they let me back into the Health...

That prisoner dreamed that he was in prison. Naturally, the dreams had details and patterns. For example, on the wall of the dream there was a poster from Paris; on the real wall there was only a dark water stain. Running along the floor of the dream was a wall lizard; looking at him from the real floor was a rat.
The prisoner dreamed that he was in prison. Someone was massaging his back and he was starting to feel better. He couldn't see who it was, but he was sure it was his...

Daydreaming
"See, that's why I don't want you to come by yourself."
"What did I do?"
"Don't make believe you don't know."
"But, what did I do?"
"You were going to cross with a red light."
"But no cars were coming."
"Yes they were, Beatriz."
"But they were very far away."
"Let's go now."
They walk by the supermarket. Then, by the dry cleaners.
"Graciela."
"What is it?"
"I promise to always cross with the green light."
"You already promised me...

On Saturday afternoons, I'm the only woman at the Fetishists' Club. Otherwise it's just men.
We meet on the weekends, before Sunday, stupid old Sunday, the gloomiest, most depressing day of the week. Sundays are a lost cause: reality plain and simple, unadorned. If you're lucky, you can sleep a little longer, between one noise and the next-the neighbor's shower, the elevator full of children (children are let loose on Sundays and there's no telling what can...

Toward the end of the twentieth century, rumors about the cities spread. Some people spoke of their demise, others of a strange rebirth from out of the rubble. Clandestine groups would whisper secrets about cities that were still inhabitable, where it was possible to walk, see a bird, explore a museum, or take in the color of the sky. But places like that were few and far between. Gradually, people started talking about Berlin. Not in public, in newspapers, or in social gatherings. The...

He never considered himself an exiled politician. He abandoned his country out of a strange impulse that was forged in three stages. The first was when he was approached by four successive beggars on the Avenue. The second was when a minister said the word Peace on television and his right eyelid immediately started to tremble. The third was when he entered his neighborhood church and saw that a Christ (not the most divine one, crowded with candles, but another, crestfallen, on a side...

Like what you read? Help WWB bring you the best new writing from around the world.

Content

Follow Us

Magazine

Words without Borders opens doors to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the best international literature. Every month we publish select prose and poetry on our site. In addition we develop print anthologies, work with educators to bring literature in translation into classrooms, host events with foreign authors, and maintain an extensive archive of global writing.